Sunday, October 18, 2009

There’s a new series of TV ads for Progresso soups, in which people are depicted talking to kitchen staff using soup-can telephones. The image to the right (click to enlarge) comes from this ad in the series.

Didn’t the people who put the ads together ever actually do this in grade school? Doesn’t everybody know that you have to pull the string tight for it to work? You won’t hear a thing with the string limp, as it is in that image you see there.

Yes, I know it’s just a silly advert. But, well, how hard would it have been for them to get it right?

3 comments:

They probably learned the technique from an episode of Family Guy where the "telephone" cord was just as limp. :-) Their dramaturg should be fired. Secondary sources are no substitute for actual research!

Maybe it's actually not string, but white-insulated telephone wire, and each can has a real speaker and microphone hidden inside it (and yes, there's a battery somewhere in the circuit). That would work without requiring tension on the "string." And really, isn't that how you'd do it if you were a kid today with access to a wee bit of cheap electronics?

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